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“Appraisals” – The most favorite word of all salaried professionals in this entire universe. Well, once it’s done, most of them end up disliking that word. Why!! Well, it is obvious, once they hear the following statements – “You were good, but you could have done better”, “There is still some scope for improvement”, “We wanted to promote you, but the bell curve is the issue”, “Next year we will surely promote you”. Right!!! Me sure most of them might have heard all these things, or at least some of these in the past. And for those who did not hear any of these, are the few lucky ones 🙂

For a Recruiter, Appraisal Season is where they have to get ready for hiring. Why hiring!! Well, based on the hikes announced by the company, people will decided to stay or quit. If they quit, Delivery managers will raise new requisitions, and the hiring season will be on for recruiters. For HR Professionals, well, it might turn out to be a nightmare, based on the hike declared. And for an employee, well, for some it’s shopping season and for some it’s time to reflect on their own performance. In case you might have missed out previous post about Appraisals, you can view it here – Life of an Employee, HR and Recruiter during Appraisals

The other day I was just going through this article in HBR – How to Write the Dreaded Self-Appraisal . There are some useful tips given in the post about how to manage your appraisals. But there is also a group of people who are not that impressed by the funda of Appraisals. People often end up saying that there is no use of this. Do you also feel the same!!! OK, let’s get back to some good news to all salaried people out there.

Last year, thanks to Infosys, the Appraisal season was not that great. Now you might ask how Infosys can make an impact on our Appraisals!! Well, Infosys did end up announcing that it will not give any hike for its 149000 employees for 2012. That was a major hint to the other IT companies, as this was a massive step by one of the Industry leaders. Soon, there were a series of other companies who too kept the wait and watch strategy on. But other companies ended up giving 8-12% hike, matching the industry average. So will there be a similar hike this time around!!! Based on the following reports, it can be seen that there will be a double digit hike this year.

So is this good news!! Well, for some of them, they would be happy to know that the hike this year will be in double digit. But for some it might not be enough. Well, at the end of the day, nothing seems to be enough, considering the inflation and price rise around us. So what do you think about this Hunting season!! OOPS, Appraisal Season!! How are you preparing to present yourself this season!! Looking forward to your views on the same.

Going through the history of existence of Twitter, it’s been proved through various research & expert opinion that Twitter does play an important in the Professional world and companies cannot afford to ignore it in such competitive time. When we say “Professional world”, this post is more focused on the “Recruitment World”. Holding the fort of a Recruiter ,all of us have to agree that as a recruiter one has to keep an eye on the Market ,what’s happening around as, industry updates, skill mapping and find out more about the Hiring pattern of the competitors . Market Mapping is one such activity that a recruiter gets involved into. Am sure that you’re Recruitment Manager or people from Top Management would have asked for certain type of Data related to the competitors.

Following are some of the data that is usually asked for:

– The Headcount of a particular Competitor for certain skill
– Based on the high ask by the candidates, the managers often ask about the kind of Salary hike that’s being given by competitors.
– The number of employees hired during the quarter, attrition data, new clients added during a particular quarter, project scrapped, layoff etc.
– What is the payout percentage of Bonus/variable pay by competitors?

So now the question arises, where do we find these days. Going by our traditional source of Info we might well think about info from Naukri, Linkedin, calling up employees checking with them. But how many of us actually thought of just browsing Twitter once to find out these details via Twitter? So any guess how we do it?? It’s simple; all you have to do is follow your competitor on Twitter.

Following are some examples digged out of Twitter to make fellow recruiters aware of how much info can be fetched from a Social Media tool! As you are aware that major IT Companies in India have come out with their Quarterly Results. Here’s a consolidation of two Major IT companies!

Infosys:
As we speak, Infosys has 24616 followers on Twitter. Infosys has been very active on Twitter when it comes to sharing their Quarterly results. So will the tweets from this account give me some information, that might help the Top Management / Recruiters!!

TCS Twitter Account:TCS has 16852 followers on Twitter, and just like Infosys they too are very much active on Twitter. Following are some of the tweets that you might find very interesting:

– HR Head Ajoy: Variable Allowance for Q4 is 100%. Average hike for India is 8%
– VP HR Head: We are increasing our hiring in the US. The past year we have hired 1600 graduates in the United States. #results
– HR Head Ajoy: We should have a wage hike in India between 6-10% on average, 2-5% in the developed markets #results
– CEO Chandra: We have a huge bench now, training has been completed and ready for deployment. We’ve made offers to 45k freshers. #results
–All time high Gross addition: 70,400 employees; Total base 238,583 professionals’ #results

So, now you know that Average Hike the company will be offering, the Variable pay that will be given to the employees.

So do you think this information will help the recruiters, when they recruit from the market!! Well definitely, this gives a platform for the Recruitment team, based on which they can negotiate and hire from the external market. This does not mean that only recruiters get benefitted from it, in fact the candidates who are looking out can use this data and negotiate with their future employer.

Twitter is one such goldmine, if used in a right way can surely benefit you and your team. In this competitive world, such piece of vital information can make life easy and also helps you to plan accordingly. So the next time you get a request for such data, you very well know where to get it from 😉

PS: Unlike LinkedIn Groups, there is no moderation required to follow your competitors on twitter

You might be thinking what kind of season is this – “Recruitment” Some might say that it goes on for 365 days, so what is so special about this season. Well, Its time for you to get rewarded for all your hard work last year. Its time for Ratings and Bonuses to be announced. Some companies have already announced it, some are going to very soon.

The reason for writing this post is to try and understand the process behind this season. Its a season when people switch, jump, hop and shift jobs. (% is more compared to other seasons) Every one has a right to do that, and after all its for betterment of their career.

Candidates are waiting for their revised salary(revised salary would include % hike that they are eligible for – depending upon their ratings), and Bonus. Its a perfect season this time, as thanks to the recession, companies were not able to match the expectations of their resources. But now the Market is OPEN, very much OPEN. Salaries are going sky high. Generic skills are selling like hot pan cakes, and their market value too is at an all time high.

So, why worry, every one is happy. Right…… May be… May be not……. This is just a start, the real problem will soon arise, once these candidates are out in market, with the revised letter from their companies, their expectations will also be high, in case they are looking for a change. Soit will be a tuff time for their future employers to hire them. Now a days 30 % hike is just normal (Hope you all agree on this)

So, it will be interesting to look at companies who will try to match their expectations (Most companies have announced 10 – 15 % average hike), so employers need to be ready to add 30% on top of 15%……. (45 % HIKE) Don’t be surprised, companies have to shell out money. It will be a real challenge to also retain the current employees, as well as to hire employees from the Market………